Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.
I have never thought about how soda or beer or ale gets made. It’s just always been one of those things that you buy, you know? But then the opportunity arose to review a Starter Kit from Fermentools, and I got curious to see if it was something that I could do.
Honestly, though, fermenting seems to be typically for veggies. I know that you can ferment cabbage to become sauerkraut, and coming from a very Germanic community, I’m quite familiar with that particular dish – and I’ve never liked it.
Because of that, I was really only interested in learning how to ferment drinks. I’ve heard of kefir, kombucha, and the like, but I’ve never had them; I have enough friends who love them, though, to be curious. Recent health challenges have also caused changes in the way that I eat and drink, making me more willing to try these than ever before.
After my starter kit from Fermentools arrived, though, and we dug into the website a bit, we were happily surprised at all of the things that you can ferment. I think some of my extended family members would really enjoy using this! Because you can ferment other types of veggies, too, in all sorts of combinations, the possibilities seem endless.
My husband even asked me to make pickles – shocker! I was happy to try that, though, given the huge piles of cucumbers we’ve been storing in the fridge – but then our circumstances changed.
A family member spent several weeks in the hospital, causing major upheaval in sorts of ways here at home. After that – and after the funeral ended – it has taken time to regroup, catch up on things, and be able to focus again – and I’m still working on that last part. So when I dug back into those recipes, I found that they sounded much more complicated than they had originally. Had I not looked closely enough? – or is it just that my brain is still too foggy to figure out something new? I’m not sure; but either way, I couldn’t handle the pickle idea as the recipes seemed much more complicated than expected.
With my Big Helper’s … um … help, we returned to the beverage idea and decided to make ginger ale. I was still a bit hesitant about the whole thing, especially since I didn’t have a jar big enough for the whole batch, but we decided to wing it with the biggest jar that we had and make the best of it.
The process turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be after trying to muddle through the recipe – though, honestly, this was probably because My Big Helper pulled out the starter kit and figured out how to use the whole thing. I prepped the liquid and then turned it over to her, and she turned into the brewmaster who did the rest.
We let the ginger ale ferment for three days, in the hopes of maximizing bubbles without brewing any additional alcohol, and I think this was a good fit for us. I wouldn’t have minded having a few more bubbles, as there weren’t many, but the recipe said that you could also add seltzer water. We didn’t bother with that, as it was fine the way that it was.
I haven’t had ginger ale since I was a kid, and I have a feeling that this was pretty different. I really didn’t taste any ginger – it tasted like a mildly bubbly form of lemonade instead. Maybe I should have chopped up the ginger? At any rate, we enjoyed the lemony taste, and it was sweeter than expected – another pleasant surprise.
None of us loved it, though – totally a personal preference thing. I know that the probiotics are a huge health benefit, but it’s not worth pushing to me right now. There’s just too much on my plate, soI don’t think we’ll try the other beverages just yet.
I do think that the chow-chows and other fermented veggie mixtures have potential. Maybe I’ll be ready to tackle one of those before summer’s abundance ends.
To do that, I think you make a simple brine with the salt that comes in the starter kit. Then, pour it over the veggies, assemble the jar, and wait. I like that the salt has a handy-dandy measurement chart on it – that makes the process much easier.
I wish that more of the recipes on the website were this simple, though. Maybe if they had a rating system, like easy, medium, or difficult? A simple printed recipe book full of ideas to get you started would be a great addition to the starter kit. There are so many recipes on the website that it was hard to know where to start – and then when we found something that sounded interesting, we often found that we didn’t have the supplies or knowledge or experience to test it out. Maybe if my brain was more it’s usual adventurous self, we would’ve tried more – but even then, I would’ve appreciated a bit of direction since this was a totally new process for me.
If you’re a fan of pickled or fermented things and are itchy to try making them yourself, the starter kit from Fermentools is a great option. Don’t take my word for it, though – click on the banner below to read more reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew.
